On mid-August nights I come out here after tenand watch the light rise from the great gray bowlof the stadium, watch it catch a scrap of candy wrapperin the wind, a soiled napkin or a peanut shell and turnit into fire or the sound of fire as the whole worldholds its breath. In the last inning 50,000pulling at the night air for one last scream.They can drain the stars of light.

Joe Louis grew up a few miles east of here and attendedBishop Elementary. No one recallsa slender, dumbfounded boy afraid of his fifth gradehome room teacher. Tom Jefferson —“Same name as the other one”—remembers Joe at seventeen all one sweltering summer unloading bales of rags effortlessly from the trucksthat parked in the alley behind Wolfe Sanitary Wiping Cloth.“Joe was beautiful,” is all he says, and we twogo dumb replaying Joe’s glide across the ringas he corners Schmeling and prepares to winWorld War II. Like Joe Tom was up from Alabama,like Joe he didn’t talk much then, and even now…